Custom and Border Protection employees won't face furloughs this year

U.S. Border Patrol vehicles drive from a checkpoint along the US-Mexican border in the Arizona desert. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

Customs and Border Protection employees won't be required to
take any days of unpaid leave this fiscal year.

The agency received approval from Congress to transfer
money within the Department of Homeland Security budget to avoid the furlough
of some 60,000 workers. CBP employees were facing up to 14 days of unpaid leave
this fiscal year.

The change was applauded by the National Treasury Employees
Union but officials there cautioned the situation is far from resolved.

"As welcome as this is development is, however, it deals
only with fiscal 2013; sequestration, which is the underpinning for all manner
of problems for federal agencies, is scheduled to continue until 2021," NTEU
President Colleen Kelly said in a statement. "And even with the decision not to
furlough employees, CBP remains particularly hard-hit by the sequester."

The agency will continue its hiring freeze but said it would
only reduce overtime expense, as opposed to the previously announced plan to eliminate it entirely.

CBP workers were originally scheduled for up to 22 days of
unpaid leave due to sequestration's across-the-board cuts. That number was
later reduced to 14, then those days were put on hold after the Congress
approved the new flexibility. The decision to do away with furloughs altogether
was announced earlier this week.